As you already know, we have come back to Bend. We arrived on a Friday afternoon in hopes of scoring one of the awesome spots out off of Forest Road 4610. When we first pulled in we noticed there were some pretty sweet rigs parked in spots along the road so we were fearful there might not be room for us. But we were in luck. Our old spot was wide open and ready for us to return. It felt good to be back home!
In our last visit to Bend, we didn’t get a chance to enjoy the coolness of the Deschutes River so we were determined to jump right in this time around! Well, we didn’t actually get in the water, it is still freezing, but we did venture out to rent some kayaks. We started the morning out determined in purchasing a tandem kayak so we would only have to transport one kayak opposed to two. After some shopping around, we decided it was best to rent one first. We headed down to a local raft house and tried out some of their inflatable kayaks. First we tried an inflatable tandem kayak and quickly realized it wasn’t going to work. We then rented two whitewater kayaks, Rocky Mountain Rafts, to give the river a test drive. We paddled up river about a mile and half to some small rapids. Let me tell you, those white water kayaks are not smooth water friendly.
Bend has some AMAZING mountain bike trails. The last time we didn’t get any footage of us biking through Phil’s Trail so this time we strapped the GoPro to our bike and hit the trail. One of may have even wrecked. The trails are very well marked and there are multiple routes you can take. You could spend days riding all of the trails Bend has to offer and still not get to half of them.
*It’s not the best quality, but if you watch long enough, you’ll see the crash.
The last time we were in Bend we took the dogs up to Tumalo Falls for a hike. This time we headed out to Smith Rock State Park, sans dogs, and hiked a few of the trails there. It was gorgeous. You can read more about that hike from Mr. TCP’s POV.
We tried to go to Munch and Music at Drake Park but it started to rain and we are fare weather friends. We prefer to sit out in dry warm weather, not wet cold weather. We did frequent this adorable little half cafe half market called Jackson’s Corner.
Image credit: visitbend.org.
Bend, OR encompasses everything I love about a town. It’s smallish, has fantastic outdoor activities, the people are friendly, the traffic is minimal, and there is a little bit of weird to it.
